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**__ Pluto __** **A research paper by Hayden**

**Ever since that fateful day in 2006, there has been many questions about the planetary status of the celestial object. Even now, though it’s dwarf planetary status is now common news, some people refuse to accept that as of right now, there are only eight planets that we know of. Hopefully, reading this will help clarify the decision, and the history that led up to it.**

**//__Why isn’t Pluto a Planet?__//** **UUp from 1930 at its discovery to 2006, Pluto was believed to be the 9th planet in the Solar System. In 2005 people started speculating whether or not Pluto was indeed a planet, because many other Pluto-like objects started appearing in telescopes. In 2006, the International Astronomical Union derived three rules that a planet must follow to be a planet. #1 Said object must orbit the sun, #2 it must be large enough to have the gravity necessary to pull itself into a sphere, and #3 It must be heavier then the accumulate weight of the small objects in its orbit.** **Pluto satisfies rules 1 and 2, but strangely enough, Pluto’s orbit intersects with the orbit of Neptune for about 20 years, and Neptune is much larger and heavier then Pluto, therefore poor Pluto fails the ultimate planetary test and remains a mere dwarf planet. This also means that between the years of 1979 and 1999, Pluto was the 8th planet and Neptune the 9th. Other dwarf planets of note include Eris, a strong point in the argument against Pluto, as Eris is 125% Pluto’s size.**

**__Space Journeys__** **The new horizon’s spacecraft was sent in 2006 towards Pluto, and is a little over halfway there now. Its window of viewing begins on July 25, 2015, at 6:58 AM. The entire journey will be 3,000,000,000 miles, some 3,000 million, and has gone about 1.8 billion. It is traveling at a speed of 35000 mph, or 57000 kph. New Horizons holds a speed record, not for the fastest spacecraft, but as the Fastest Exit of Earths Atmosphere. As it flies by Pluto, we will be able to confirm suspicions of the surface of Pluto, identify key physical characteristics, and nearby Kuiper Belt Objects and possibly even new Moons.**

**__History__** **Percival Lowell discovered the evidence of its existence around 1906. He died in 1916 without finding it, but in 1930, Clyde Tombaugh, using the notes Lowell took of the gravitational effect Pluto had on Neptune, discovered the new "Ninth planet in the solar system", but what was really the first Kuiper Belt Object. In memory of Mr. Lowell, the first two letters of Pluto are also his initials. Pluto is the Roman name for the Greek god, Hades, AKA Dis Pater or Orcus, and he was the god of Fertility, Abundance, and Death. He was the brother of Zeus, son of Cronus, and lives in the House of Hades in the bowels of the earth. The name was suggested by a young girl named Venetia Phair, who is now over 85 years old.**

**__Facts__** **Pluto is a very small Object in the outer reaches of our planet with a very irregular orbit. It is about 3,647,240,000 miles from the sun, A.K.A Four light hours** **It has three natural satellites, or moons, named Charon, the largest, and two smaller ones named Hydra and Nix. Since it is small, it has very little gravity, so it has very little atmosphere, so it has no greenhouse effect, hence its average temperature is about -380ºF.** **Because of its low gravity, on Pluto you weigh 0.066875 as much as you do on Earth. A 150 pound man would weigh 10 pounds on Pluto. Pluto is half the size of the moon, 1/150 the size of earth, and 1/200,000,000 the size of the sun. And get this, there is a star named VY Canis Majoris, which could be as large as 2000 times as large as our sun! That means four hundred million, or 400,000,000,000 Pluto’s could fit inside this one star! One Pluto day = six and a half earth days, one Pluto Year = two hundred and forty-eight earth years, one earth year = fifty-six Pluto days, one Pluto year = fourteen thousand Pluto days, and one Pluto year = ninety thousand Earth days.** **In conclusion, since the verdict was had in 2006, five years ago, now it is considered conventional knowledge. Hopefully you already knew this, but if you didn’t, you should now. Most people didn’t know anything at all about how it came to be, and the sad life it has had. Perhaps come 2015, when that space probe passes by it, we may just receive some revolutionary information that will rock our world. Perhaps not.**

**BIBLIOGRAPHY** · Pluto (mythology)." //Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia.// Grolier Online, 2011. Web. 24 Jan. 2011.   · Dickinson, Terrence. “__Exploring the Night Sky”__. Buffalo: Firefly Books, 2002.    · Weintraus, David. “__Is Pluto a Planet?”__ Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007.    · Harmon, Daniel. “__Pluto__” World Book Advanced, World Book 2010.    · Hyron, Spinrad. “__Pluto__” World Book Online Reference Center, 2004. []    · “__New Horizons__.” Nasa.gov, 2010. []